'Tez' will help India in digital transformation, feels Google CEO Pichai

New Delhi: Search engine giant Google's India-born CEO, Sundar Pichai, on Tuesday, said company's new digital payment app 'Tez', that is dedicated to India, will help the country move closer to digital transformation.

Taking to Twitter a day after the official launch of Google Tez in India, Pichai said, "We hope that the launch of @TezByGoogle will help take India one step closer to your vision of @_DigitalIndia."

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who launched the app here had said the idea of "Tez" was discussed by Pichai in January, just after demonetisation.

Built on the Indian government-supported Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Tez allows users, free of charge, to make small or big payments straight from their bank accounts.

The app was built for India, working on the vast majority of the country's smartphones and available in English and seven Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu).

The app works in partnership with four Banks -- Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India -- to facilitate the processing of payments across over 50 UPI-enabled banks.